Schools want gardens to keep growing

BY JEFF NEEMS

Enviroschools' staff are lobbying the Government in an effort to stop their funding being cut and save 16 jobs seven of them in Hamilton.

Education Minister Anne Tolley announced this month the Government would no longer contribute $1.6 million a year to the popular Enviroschools programme.

The programme, in which dozens of Waikato schools are involved, sees students taught environmental sustainability and ecological issues in practical lessons often held outside the classrooms.

The concept, developed in the Waikato in the 1990s, has since been extended to schools across New Zealand.

Heidi Mardon, Enviroschools Foundation's Hamilton-based national director, has been in Wellington this week lobbying the Education Ministry to continue the Enviroschools funding.

Enviroschools directly employs 16 people, seven of them based in Hamilton.

"We'd all be gone if the cut goes through," Ms Mardon said.

They would know next week if their lobbying had been successful.

Ms Mardon said that through local councils, funding at grass-roots level remained secure, but the Government's funding cut would affect facilitator training and development work and presented the programme with a major problem.

"We didn't see it coming quite as quickly [as this]. We had a contract until mid next year, and we expected that contract to be honoured ... we did not expect to be cut right now.

"It's very hard to understand why they're doing it."

The cut in funding has been called shortsighted by Waikato principals, who have hailed the benefits of the scheme.

Most schools have specific Enviroschool teachers and are regularly visited by Enviroschools co-ordinators.

Tirau School principal Leo Spaans was "fairly much devastated" by the "shortsighted" funding cut announcement which, he felt, was not well thought through.

"I was quite disappointed. As part of the new curriculum, we're looking at giving back to the community, sustainability, environmental issues, etc, and then funding gets cut it doesn't make things any easier for the school."

He believed the Government's decision to cut Enviroschools funding was at odds with its messages about New Zealand's need to plan for a more sustainable future.

Enviroschools had engaged the entire community.

"We've done quite a bit in the two years we've been involved in the project we've got sustainable gardens which provide food for the foodbanks, we've planted the native gardens throughout the schools with the support of the Enviroschools team, and we're working to replant bush.

"It's a big initiative. The impact (of funding cuts) will be huge in small rural schools."

Te Aroha Primary School principal Kevin Johnson was unhappy about the funding cut, and felt it was strange for the Government to promote sustainability in the curriculum when it was pulling money from the Enviroschools programme which helped achieve the sustainability goal. "It has come as a shock. There are all kinds of programmes which have been axed, and this is just another cost-saving measure."

Mr Johnson said Te Aroha Primary was a very keen Enviroschool, and he pledged to press ahead with the school's environmental work because it benefited the wider community.

Enviroschools lessons were particularly beneficial for students who struggled with conventional learning, or had special needs, a point also made by Nick Quinn, principal at Hamilton's St Peter's Chanel Catholic School.

"It's absolutely practical learning at its best," Mr Johnson said. "It's not a one-off learning thing, we're teaching kids a way of life."

Teachers and students thrived on the Enviroschools learning, Mr Johnson said, praising a "wonderful" Enviroschools co-ordinator who regularly visited Te Aroha Primary.

Education Minister Anne Tolley did not respond to specific Times questions, but a statement from her office said: "The decision was taken because in tough economic times, the Government is focusing on its core spending priorities for the education system of raising literacy and numeracy and increasing the numbers of pupils leaving school with educational qualifications. This programme does not contribute directly to these priorities."

Prime Minister John Key, who visited the lower Coromandel this week, also defended the decision to cut the Enviroschools funding, saying his administration had redirected the money to literacy and numeracy.

"Obviously, no-one likes cutting programmes," Mr Key said.

He said he believed a lot of what was taught in the Enviroschools programme would be picked up by teachers, and said its website would continue to offer on-line learning.

- © Fairfax NZ News